


No Place in Heaven

by Black_Tea_and_Bones



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: All the training montages we didn't get in the show, F/F, Get your shit together Ava, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Slow Burn, what happens next
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26354320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Tea_and_Bones/pseuds/Black_Tea_and_Bones
Summary: The gang is on the run, but not for long. They're going to turn Ava into the best damned Warrior Nun the world has ever seen (Or at least a competent one, I mean... aim low) and then they'll be back to finish the fight.This is a "What Happens Next..." fic, with a lot of Ava getting her butt kicked, found family bonding, and a slow burn Avatrice on the side.
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 53
Kudos: 258





	1. Born to Run

They run.

Under better circumstances, Ava might have appreciated the irony. After going on and on and _on,_ about _her_ shitty instincts, this time it's the sisters running away from a fight, and dragging Ava along with them. 

Though in Mary's defense, they dragged her too. They nearly had to carry her.

Thanks demon-zombie hoard.

They  _did_ have to carry Ava. The Halo blast that saved them had knocked her so far onto her ass she was seeing stars. At least she'd managed to aim it mostly at the bad guys this time. 

Hello progress, goodbye Vatican.

She misses most of their getaway, doing her best impression of a stunned sack of flour and all, but she's pretty sure it involves Camilla hot wiring a car. Speaking of which, where in the hell did a nun get such bad-ass tech skills anyway? Ancient order of demon-fighting clergy blah, blah, blah,  _that_ made a fucked up sort of sense. The Catholic Church loved bullying it's way out a problem. But Camilla is like this tiny, adorable computer genius in a wimple. It's weird. 

No weirder than literally everything else since she woke up in a morgue though maybe.

She _might_ be starting to forget what normal looks like.

The last time things had been normal she'd been seven years old, bouncing around winding roads in the back of a tiny little rental car; listening to her mother sing along to the radio in a language she didn't understand.

Since then, it's all been one shit show after another.

But she's trying not to do that anymore. Feel sorry for herself that is.

Life sucks. So what? She can whine about it, or she can try to make it suck a little less.

Lately she's been aiming for the making it suck less.

Right now is not a shining example, but hey, at least she's not alone, right? That has to count for something.

Once again she's bouncing around in the back of a borrowed (okay, stolen) car, roaring up the winding roads into the hills. There's no singing this time; though Mary's been keeping up an impressive string of profanity from the front seat since they left. Mostly about Father Vincent and Adriel. Ava really doesn't care enough to try to follow it. They're both traitorous dicks as far as she's concerned. Everything else is just details.

She's finally starting to get some feeling back in her limbs, and the headache and nausea of her usual post-blast hangover is easing off. She struggles as soon as struggling is an option, because of course she does, but the arms holding her upright only hold onto her more firmly.

“It's okay, Ava.” Beatrice's low voice in her ear is instantly and annoyingly soothing. “You're safe now.”

Safe. Right.

The old Ava might have had something snarky to say about that, but the new and improved Ava is willing to let it go. Besides, once she stops wiggling around she realizes she's actually pretty comfortable right where she is. Beatrice makes a surprisingly good pillow.

File that away under reasons Beatrice is awesome.

She doesn't rat Ava out either, even when they both know it's been long enough that she's totally capable of sitting up on her own. Camilla doesn't say anything either, though she gives Ava a look from the other side of the back seat that says she knows how full of shit she is.

Ava resists the urge to stick her tongue out at her. (← Growth.)

She really _is_ tired though. It's only maybe like fifty-seven percent a sham. 

They drive for hours. Mary finally winds down and no one else offers to break the silence. There's nothing to say really. They fucked up. End of story. No do overs, no take backs. Ava's pretty sure she's not the only one who needs a minute to process that before jumping right into how they're going to fix it. Because they are. Going to fix it that is. Ava's not letting that lying bastard get his slimy demon hands on her halo.

Wait.

_Her_ Halo? 

When the Hell did that happen? 

She really is all in, isn't she?

_Fuck._

Mary seems to know where they're going, or at least she isn't asking anyone else for suggestions or directions. It's nearly dark before they stop, and Ava has no idea exactly how long they've been driving, but she would kill for some water, and she really, _really_ has to pee. They pile out of the car in an exhausted tangle. Even Lilith looks tired, and she barely even looks like Lilith anymore.

What is _up_ with that, anyway? So far no one's actually worked up the nerve to ask. Probably something to do with the magic hell-claws. 

Ava manages to get herself out of the car, but once she's on her feet her knees start expressing some serious doubts about this whole upright situation. She falls back against the door, aiming for nonchalance, and coming pathetically short if the worried crease between Beatrice's brows is any indication. She pretends not to see it, looking around instead.

They're... here? For a given definition of here _,_ which in this case is nowhere. 

The road has been climbing steadily uphill, and from what she can see they're about halfway up a big ass mountain, and there's a village in the distance, or at least something that looks like it used to be a village. She can see a few windows lit in the fading light, but most of the houses are ruined or collapsed, and there's a slide of dirt and rocks across the road ahead of them, which pretty much explains why they stopped.

Mary's already taken off in that direction, with a dogged “Let's go,” thrown over her shoulder.

Lilith is right on her heels. Beatrice and Camilla exchange a look that Ava is _way_ too tired to try to decipher before Camilla shrugs and follows Lilith. 

“Will you be all right to walk that far?” Beatrice asks. No judgment, just genuine concern. 

Still, Ava can't help but brush it off. “Pfft, I'm the Warrior Nun; I fight demons. This hill has  _nothing_ on me _..._ ” 

She takes a few steps just to prove it, wobbling dangerously when she puts her foot down on a rock she didn't see in the dark. “Ow! Fuck...”

“Ava!” Beatrice catches her elbow.

“I'm fine,” Ava is quick to reassure her, but she doesn't pull away. The Halo warms faintly between her shoulder blades, lighting up the night between them and healing the twisted ankle before she even has time to limp. “Seriously?” she mutters at it. “Isn't this a little beneath your dignity?” The Halo ignores her, fading slowly back into quiescence with what she's choosing to imagine as a certain smug satisfaction. She's not sure if she's imagining it, but she can _feel_ the Halo more now. Her awareness of it has been growing steadily since she started her training, but ever since she made that first twenty foot trip through Salvius's blocks of stone it's gone from being a nebulous sense of power, to something that almost feels alive. She felt it's rage when Adriel tried to rip it from her body, and it was the Halo that had blasted him back and nearly brought the entire city down on their heads. 

“We'll do it together,” Beatrice offers, pulling Ava's arm over her shoulders, and wrapping hers around Ava's waist. “Come on.” 

“I don't know why this stupid thing doesn't come with a power-up button or something,” Ava grumbles, but she puts one foot in front of the other; only leaning on Beatrice as much as she absolutely has to. “It brings people back from the dead, you'd think it could compete with a good cup of coffee.” 

“You do have limits,” Beatrice reminds her. “Using the Halo takes strength and skill, and it drains your body's resources to heal you. You need rest and food to recharge.” 

Ava sighs. “Sure, use logic and reason against me.” 

“Don't whine.”

“But _Bea_ -a-trice...” Ava whines, dragging her feet. “I'm so _tired...”_

“Stop it,” Beatrice admonishes her, but she's very obviously trying not to laugh.

Ava doubles down, sagging in the other woman's arms and closing her eyes dramatically.”Carry me?”

“I will _leave_ you.”

Ava opens one eye. “No you won't.” 

“No, I won't,” Beatrice admits. “But if we don't get moving, Lilith might come back here to check on us, and she _will_ carry you, but I don't think you'll enjoy it.” 

“Yikes!” That's enough of a threat to get her back on her feet. Teasing Beatrice is fun, but it's not worth the wrath of Lilith, even before she got all extra scary. 

The less said about the rock slide the better. Beatrice goes first, helping Ava up after her. Camilla is waiting about halfway up, and she takes Ava's other side. Between the two of them they get her to the top and down the other side. There are a few scary moments when the slide shifts beneath their feet and they scramble to find their footing. Ava is trembling from exhaustion and nerves by the time they're on the road again, and the others don't look much better. 

Beatrice asks if she wants to take a minute to rest, but Ava shakes her head. If she stops now she's not sure she could get going again, so they press on. The lights from the village draw them up the last rise, and Ava blinks away the hazy blur of afterimages every time she moves her head. She knows she's holding them back, but her legs feel like blocks of wood, and her feet weigh a million pounds and her headache is back, banging merrily away at the inside of her skull. It's so much worse than that first morning after the Halo brought her back, when she was so tired she was seeing double, but too afraid to go to sleep. 

“Just a little further,” Beatrice says softly. “Here,” she adds, but she's not speaking to Ava now. It's Lilith who's suddenly right there and stooping to lift Ava into her arms like a baby. 

“I can walk...” Ava tries to protest, but she's so grateful to be off her feet that she doesn't mind when Lilith just tells her to shut up, and Mary thumps her on the shoulder, seconding Lilith. 

Beatrice was wrong; Lilith carries her like she's carrying something infinitely precious, and Ava can't help the swell of emotion that rises from her chest and lodges in her throat, bringing stinging tears to her eyes. What the fuck did she do to deserve this? And how much of a dumb little shit did she have to be to try and run away from it? She has a  _family_ again. And that, more than the walking or the powers, or anything else, is worth everything the Halo might ask of her. 

It's fully dark by the time they reach the village. Mary leads them down narrow side streets and up one last hill, and then finally, they're here. Or at least they've stopped moving, which is good enough for Ava.  _Here,_ is a house, small and square with small square windows and a sloped roof. One side is built right into a hill, the other looks like it was a shared wall in a line of similar houses before it's neighbors collapsed in whatever disaster took most of the village with them. It looks small and lonely now, but when Mary knocks, the front door opens into light and warmth. 

After that it's mostly a blur. There's a woman who ushers them in with a swirl of Italian and heavily accented English. Ava catches the occasional word or phrase; c _osa fai?_ and  _chi_ _è_ _?_ but she's too tired to translate. There's water, food and a bathroom (Thank  _god,)_ but other than filling her belly and emptying her bladder, Ava just doesn't care anymore. She's aware of Beatrice never far from her side, so she knows she  _safe._ Eventually there's a bed, a wonderful, glorious, soft and magnificent bed, and that's the last thing she remembers before it all goes black. 

*****

She wakes up alone. It's dark, but there's a faint gleam of light coming in through the single window. There's a heavy blanket weighing her down, and just for a minute, Ava panics. Her throat closes up, and she can feel her heart trying to kick it's way out of her chest. Squeezing her eyes shut, she forces herself to take a breath, dragging it into her lungs through clenched teeth and letting it out through her nose.

Move, move, move... Just _move_ you idiot! 

She can see her hand on the blanket, but she can't feel it through the static roaring in her ears. It's stupid. So fucking stupid, and she hates it, but every morning it's the same damned thing. Is this the day the Halo realizes it made a big fucking mistake? She's still breathing, so probably not, but hell, after the way she screwed things up at the Vatican she wouldn't blame it for picking someone else. 

But what if this is what it wanted all along? 

Maybe after all this time the fickle hunk of metal finally found a bearer stupid enough to Adriel out of his cage... 

Okay. Stop. 

One thing at a time. You can do this Ava. 

She shoves the panic to one side, ignoring the way her brain is doing it's best to melt it's way out of her ears, and focuses on what she  _can_ feel. The slight chill of early morning. Her heartbeat, slowing from it's frantic pace. A sick taste of fear in the back of her throat. The rough weave of wool against her skin. Holding onto that last one, she wiggles first her fingers then her toes, breathing a sigh of relief when she sees them moving under the blanket. 

She's fine. 

The Halo's still got her back. That's enough for now. She can worry about it's motives later. Assuming she has a whole lot of later left to worry in. Which is one more question than she can handle right now. She shoves the blanket down to her waist and sits up, wrapping her arms around her legs and dropping her head down onto her knees. Her stomach is still churning and her hands are shaking, but her head is yelling  _Go, go, go..._

Rolling over onto her stomach, she hangs her head over the side of the bed. If _she_ was tucking someone in... _yes_! She pulls her boots out from under the bed and tiptoes out of the room, closing the door behind her as quietly as possible. 

The house is still. There's a faint smell of coffee from what she vaguely remembers as the direction of the kitchen, but the hallway between her room and the front door is clear. She sneaks out with only the faintest twinge of conscience, waiting until she's outside to sit down on the front step and put her boots on. The laces still give her a little trouble, but she'd more or less figured out tying her shoes before the accident, and she only messes up once. 

Sunrise isn't kind to the little village. Someone has done their best to clear the streets, but there's still a  _lot_ of wreckage. She picks a direction at random and sets off. She's not leaving (as fucked as this all is, she's committed now,) she just needs to  _move._ The urge to  _go_ is an itch under her skin that pushes her from a walk into an easy jog that soon becomes a run. 

She runs and runs, reveling in the first touch of the sun on her skin as it peeks over the horizon, the rush of the wind in her face and the easy stretch of muscles long atrophied as they carry her down the road. 

God or no god, this is enough of a miracle for her. 

The road is a winding stretch of cracked and broken stone. She dodges debris nimbly and jumps the gaps that yawn wide and hungry under her feet. At every turn she goes with her gut, right or left, whatever feels right. She's moving steadily downhill, and the houses are getting sparser as she gets closer to the overgrown fields on the lower slopes. Rounding a final corner into a dead end, she skids into a stone wall and phases through at the last minute, staggering out the other side into a barnyard and startling a flock of chickens, sending them scattering them in a flurry of dust, feathers and indignant  _buh-gawks!_

A little girl with wild black hair and a basket of grain gapes at her.

Fuck. The sisters and Mary are gonna kill her. 

“Uh... hi?” Ava waves sheepishly. 

The kid just keeps staring. 

“Shit... um... Ciao?”

“Mamma!” The girl yells, turning and running back to the house. Her basket falls behind her, spilling grain across the yard. The chickens forget their pique and swarm the unexpected bounty. Ava is soon surrounded by a sea of fat, feathered bodies all determined to get their fair share. 

“S _orry_ ,” she whispers, nudging them aside with the toe of her boot, and trying not to step on little toes. There's a gate on the other side of the yard and she uses it to make a hasty escape, crossing her fingers that the kid's folks will be skeptical of a story about a strange woman running through a wall. She has a rough idea of where she is, and she heads back uphill where the houses, and remains of houses, are clustered more closely together. The urge to run has faded, so as soon as she's clear of the farm she walks, hands jammed in her pockets and her eyes on the road. 

“Ava...” Beatrice meets her where the crumbling wall along the road becomes less of a wall and more of a pile. She's forgotten her wimple, and her hair, usually confined to a neat bun, has been tied back in a hasty knot, leaving a few errant stands loose around her ears. She looks like she rushed out in a hurry, and Ava wonders for a minute what new disaster has found them, and then she realizes...

“You thought I left?” It hurts more than it should. Sure, she has a reputation for ducking out when things get tough, but she thought they were fucking _past_ this. All of her confidence from the night before vanishes, leaving her feeling hollow and more alone then ever. 

“No, I...” Beatrice stops, visibly steels herself. “Yes.”

Ava snorts. Trust Beatrice not to sugarcoat the truth. “You don't trust me.” It comes out nastier then she meant it to, but  _damnit_ , what more does she have to do to prove herself to these people? Hasn't she done  _enough_ ? Doing her best to pretend her heart isn't breaking, she brushes past Beatrice and continues up the road. 

“That's not- I was _worried_ about you,” Beatrice calls after her. 

“Well _don't_ be! _”_ Ava snaps over her shoulder. She can hear Beatrice following her.

“You really are _insufferable_ sometimes _,_ you know that?” 

“So everyone keeps telling me.” 

“Wait...” Beatrice catches her by the wrist and pulls her to a stop. Ava yanks back, but the halo isn't cooperating and Beatrice holds her easily.   


Stupidly strong nuns are the  _worst_ . 

Caught, she raises her chin and meets the other woman's eyes squarely. Daring her to explain herself. 

Beatrice opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Ava braces herself for a lecture or a fist to the face, well aware she deserves either or both, but this isn't Mary or Lillith, or anyone else Ava's ever known. 

“I'm sorry,” Beatrice says finally, any traces of anger or frustration vanishing as if they were never there. Instead she's suddenly _soft. “_ You were gone, and no one knew where you went. I was afraid for you, and I made assumptions based on that fear. I should have had more faith.” 

Oh. Well that was... how was she supposed to be mad  _now?_

Ava shrugs one shoulder, dropping her gaze and scuffing the toe of her boot against the broken road. “No big deal.” 

“It _is_ a big deal.” Beatrice takes a step forward, loosening her grip on Ava's wrist. “I overreacted, and I've hurt you.” She shook her head. “I'm not myself. Yesterday was...” 

Ava raises her head with a sympathetic twist of a grin. “An epic clusterfuck?” 

“Close enough.” Beatrice allows, for once not calling Ava out on her language. “May I walk you back?” 

It's an olive branch, and Ava really wants to take it but... “You go ahead,” she says. “I'm not ready to face everyone just yet.” She tugs herself free, and hoists herself up to sit on the last bit of wall that's still a wall. 

Instead of leaving, Beatrice follows, leaning back against the wall next to her. “No one blames you,” she says after a few minutes of comfortable silence. 

Ava is calling bullshit on that one. How could they  _not_ blame her? “They should.  _I_ let Adriel out of that tomb.” 

“Technically I'm the one who blew up the wall.” 

Which okay, fair but “yeah, to rescue  _me.”_

“We sent you in there, Ava.” Beatrice is using her firm _I know better than you_ voice, the one that should remind Ava of the nun's from her childhood, but somehow doesn't at all. “No one could have predicted Adriel was still alive, or what he was, least of all you.” 

“Vincent knew,” Ava corrects her bitterly. “He _planned_ this, and I fell for it.” She shook her head, eyes on the ground between her dangling feet. “Everyone would have been better off if I'd never come back.” 

“Ava, no...” Beatrice turns so she's in front of Ava, hands coming to rest on her knees. A steady pressure that says _I'm here. I'm with you. We're in this together._ “He would have found some other way to release Adriel eventually. And without you and the Halo, there would be no way to defeat him. This isn't your fault, Ava,” she adds with unbearably gentle conviction. “You aren't the problem. You're the solution.” 

“Yeah?” Ava risks a glance up, finding nothing but sincerity in her face. 

“Yeah,” Beatrice echoes with a wry smile.

For a perfect moment, Ava believes it, and then reality smacks her up the side of the head. How in the hell is  _she_ supposed to beat  _Adriel?_ She couldn't even beat that woman with the knife in the alley back in Spain. So far her one victory is a single demon riding some poor possessed bastard who probably never threw a punch in his life. (She's not counting the Tarask. That was Lilith's victory as far as she's concerned.) The only power she's mastered is phasing, and she can hardly challenge Adriel to a walking-through-walls competition. Any of the others would be a better Halo bearer than she is. Hell,  _Diego_ would have been a better Halo Bearer. At least he always  _wanted_ to be a hero. Ava just wanted to be normal. 

They're all  _counting_ on her, and she just... 

“I _can't-”_ she manages, but she's having trouble catching her breath. Her chest hurts and her jaw locks on the rest of what she wanted to say. She can feel the halo reacting, burning a circle of fear into her back. 

“Ava?” Beatrice lets go of her knees to cup her face. “What's wrong? Ava, _look at me!”_

Ava looks at her.

“Good. Now breathe.”

Ava takes a ragged breath.

“Better. Now, forget about beating him, tell me what happened in the tomb.”

Ava blinks at the sudden change of subject, still floundering around in her own well of self doubt, but Beatrice is right there, steady, safe and strong, and she has her hands on Ava's face, and Ava can't say no to her.

“I didn't see him at first,” she says, the story coming out of her in bits and pieces, all jumbled up and out of order, but Beatrice listens without any sign of being annoyed or impatient. So Ava tells her everything. 

“I almost gave him the Halo,” she admits.

“Why?” 

“I thought it was the right thing to do. He said he'd fix things and I...”

“You were willing to die in there. Alone,” Beatrice finishes for her. She's looking at Ava like she's someone special and not a selfish asshole who for half a minute just wanted to be _done._ It would have meant something then, if she died to save the world. To save her new family. Better than being murdered by a crazy nun anyway. But Ava couldn't even do that right. 

“You were very brave,” Beatrice adds, thumbs sweeping soothingly across Ava's cheekbones.. 

“I was _stupid,”_ Ava disagrees miserably. Understatement of the _fucking_ year. “He lied to me. He lied to Areala, to everyone...” She gets through this part of the story a little quicker, jumping over a lot of the blood and mayhem.

Beatrice nods when she finishes. “You saw through him.” 

“The Halo-”

“No.” Beatrice shakes her head. “I don't think it was the Halo. I think it was you.”

“Sure, because I've been such an outstanding judge of character so far.”

“That's not what I meant.” She pauses, waiting until Ava meets her eyes again. “What if Lilith had been given the Halo instead of you? What if Vincent had sent _her_ into that tomb? Or Camilla? Or me? Would _any_ of us have doubted his divinity? No,” she answers her own question before Ava has time to protest. “We would have handed the Halo over without question." She drops her hands to take Ava's instead, pressing them between her own. “ You see? It had to be you, Ava. Your sheer _bullheadedness_ gave you the strength to defy him.”

“But he _got away...”_ Ava's head was spinning. She'd been so sure she'd fucked up, but maybe...   


“With _out_ the Halo,” Beatrice pointed out. “Which means we _can_ beat him.” 

“ _How?”_ Ava demands, yanking her hands free to throw them up in the air. “Even if you're right, I'm like the _least_ qualified person for the job. I can't fight, I don't know how to use my own powers, I don't even know what half of them _are!”_

“Then you'll learn.” Beatrice crosses her arms, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Mother Superion always said the Halo brings out the Bearer's natural strengths. We just have to find yours.” 

Ava rolls her eyes. “All I'm good at is running away.” 

Beatrice smiles unexpectedly. “Then we'll use that. Race you back!” Without any more warning than that, she spins on her heel and sprints up the road, leaving Ava gaping after her.

“Wait!” she splutters. “That's not fair!” Scrambling down off the wall she takes off after Beatrice and towards whatever the hell is coming next. 


	2. Not your Mother's Training Montage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Beatrice wins, but she totally cheated so Ava's claiming the moral high ground here.

She's lagging behind and out of breath by the time Beatrice slides to a stop, looking back over her shoulder with this infuriatingly subtle little smirk of victory, so of course Ava crashes into her, sending them both tumbling into the dirt in a tangle of arms and legs. She ends up on top (and yes, she knows exactly how that sounds, but this is a matter of integrity, okay?) with Beatrice pinned underneath her.

“You-” Beatrice splutters. “You _oaf!”_

“Me?” Ava, sits back across Beatrice's hips. “ _You're_ the one who wanted to make this a 'training exercise.'” Yeah, she used air quotes, deal with it. 

Beatrice rolls her eyes. “I meant the _running,_ not whatever _this_ is _,”_ she gestures between them, “Off!”

Ava grins, slow and smug. “Make me.”

Ow, ow, ow, ow... stupid, stupid, that was  _so_ stupid. Ava has no idea how it happened but she blinked and now her face is in the dust, one of her is arms twisted up behind her and Beatrice has a knee firmly planted in the small of her back. 

Right. Badass vs. Dumbass. No news there.

“Very well. lesson one,” Beatrice is sweetness incarnate. “Never start a fight you can't finish.”

Ava spits out a mouthful of dirt. “Noted.”

“Do you yield?”

“Do I have a choice?”

The front door opens before she can answer that. Craning her neck, Ava can just see Mary out of the corner of her eye on the step with Lilith right behind her. Awesome. Witnesses.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me...” Lilith's words carry a whole world of disdain in that single sentence. 

“When you kids are done playing,” Mary adds, delivery dry as toast, “breakfast is on the table.”

The door closes behind them with the dull thud of heartless abandonment. Okay, no help there, clearly.

Ava's stomach grumbles. “Would you consider a compassionate release?”

Beatrice twists her arm a little harder. “Yield.”

Fucking _ow!_ “Fine! I yield.” 

There's nothing like knowing you absolutely deserved to get your butt kicked to make said kicking really sting like a motherfucker. Beatrice releases her the moment she yields, flowing back to her feet with an entirely unreasonable amount of grace for someone who was just brawling in the dirt. Ava rolls over with a grunt, rubbing her poor aching shoulder and scowling up at the hand offered to her. Beatrice, of course, is entirely unruffled, though there's a smudge of dirt on the tip of her nose that Ava is itching to rub off for some reason.

She takes her hand instead, letting Beatrice haul her to her feet and bringing a cloud of dust up with her.

“I'm sorry,” Beatrice steps closer to help her brush some of the dirt off of yesterday's clothes. “I didn't think.” She doesn't _sound_ very sorry. In fact Ava is pretty sure she's trying not to laugh, but since she threw the first punch (metaphorically speaking) she's gonna be the bigger person here and let it go. 

“You might want to get cleaned up before breakfast,” Beatrice adds, pulling the cuff of her sleeve up over her hand to wipe at the smears of dirt on Ava's face, catching her chin in her other hand to keep her still without so much as a by-your-leave. “Food usually tastes better without a side of gravel.” 

And of course Ava just stands there like an idiot and _lets her._ No matter how many times Beatrice does this, moving right into Ava's space as if she belongs there, touching her and _caring_ about her and just doing it over and over... it's still a shock. Ava has like, negative twelve years experience with this. Stab her, shoot her, kick her off a cliff any day. Those are _easy._

Beatrice slows, meeting Ava's eyes with something like understanding.

Which is why Ava does another really stupid thing and wipes that annoying smudge of dirt off the end of her nose with the flat of her thumb.

Beatrice's eyes widen.

_Abort_ ,  _abort_ ! Ava yanks her hand away, jumping back and nearly tripping over her own feet. “Okay, mom _,_ ” she snarks, shoving down the quivering mess of her feelings (totally generic feelings by the way. She doesn't have to label them if she doesn't want to.  _No one_ has to label them. In fact, no one is  _allowed_ to label them. One great big unmarked cardboard box, please.)

“I'll just, umm...” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder, _not_ in the direction of the house (see dumbass,) and sidesteps around Beatrice, fleeing as soon as she has a clear shot at the door and tossing a completely unnecessary “see you at breakfast!” behind her because she has no social skills. And okay, yeah, she's running away again, but she's not running _far_ , and look, it's her MO for a reason. Baby steps. She'll get there. 

She finds the bathroom from memory, and washes up. The water is ice cold but beggars and choosers and all that. There's a couple of worn, but clean hand towels hanging up and she uses one of them to scrub her face, neck and hands and then wipe all the mud out of the sink, wincing at the dirty smears left behind. There's an old wicker laundry basket behind the door and she drops the towel in there, hoping that's the correct protocol. The last thing she wants to do is piss off their hosts. The smell of coffee leads her to the big country kitchen where everyone is already crowded around a wood slab table, tucking into platters of some kind of sweet looking pastries, fruit, bread and jams.

But before she can fall on that absolutely glorious bounty, she's accosted by the tiniest woman she's ever seen. Seriously, she only comes up to Ava's shoulder and she looks like she's about a hundred and fifty years old. Her arms are wrinkly brown sticks and her hands are knotted twigs,one long finger pointing squarely at the center of Ava's chest.

“You!” The single word is wielded like a weapon in the hands of a master, and it stops Ava in her tracks. “ _You_ ,” she continues in heavily accented Italian, “are the Warrior Nun?”

“Um... yeah? Last time I checked.” Great. Really great Ava. This woman controls the food, and you're making jokes.

She _Hurumphs,_ which is a sound Ava didn't think people actually made outside of books, and looks Ava up and down with an air of great disappointment. “You don't look like much. What can you do?” 

“I... uh...” Ava is considering giving her a demonstration via escaping through the wall, but she's saved by another little old lady, this one somewhat less little, and not quite so old; she recognizes her as the woman who welcomed them in the night before... Mirabella, she thinks was her name. They're both in dark brown dresses that might have once been black, and Ava can tell by looking at them that they're partners. She's not sure how, but there's something _connected_ about them, like one wouldn't be complete without the other. 

“Leave the poor child be, Letizia, she hasn't even eaten yet.” Mirabella takes Ava by the hand and pulls her the rest of the way into the kitchen, moving Lilith over on the bench with a look and a single sweep of one long bony finger (earning Ava's undying respect for life,) and sitting Ava down in the open place.

“Mangia!” she says with a clap of her hands, and Ava has never been so happy to do as she's told.

She mumbles a hasty thank you and adds a somewhat garbled “good morning” to the rest of the warrior sisters around her first bite of pastry. It's easily the best thing she's ever put in her mouth, and she ignores Lilith wrinkling her nose, rolling her eyes back in pure sugar-and-carb induced bliss. She doesn't even notice when Beatrice joins them, too busy stuffing her face. Mary slides over a cup of coffee, sweet and full of cream, and Ava could kiss her, it's  _that_ good. She has vague memories of breakfast with her Mom being something savory, eggs and bacon or pancakes with syrup, and the orphanage always served gruel, but she could definitely get used to this. 

They give her enough time to put in a solid effort at making herself sick, but eventually the food is whisked away, dishes are piled in the sink, and everyone gets a second cup of coffee. Ava swallows her last bite of bread and jam (Strawberries are her new favourite thing by the way,) feeling it slide painfully around the sudden lump in her throat as the tension in the room jumps up to eleven.

“Why do I feel like this is a bad news/worse news kind of situation?” she asks, looking around at a table full of sober faces. Everyone is still in some version of yesterday's clothes, though most of the outer layers, chain mail, weapons and head coverings have been discarded. She's gotten a bit more used to the unrelieved black since she started hanging out with nuns, but it doesn't make for a cheerful looking crowd.

“There is _some_ good news,” Camilla pipes up from the end of the table. “No one knows where we are.” 

“Yet,” Mary adds grimly.

“Okay, but... where _are_ we?” Ava asks. 

“Castelluccio Di Norcia.” Mary says, nodding at the two old women in turn. “You've met Letizia and Mirabella, they're Shannon's great aunts. They were warrior sisters long before any of us were born, and they could probably still kick your ass, so be polite.”

Letizia grins at her in a way that makes Ava believe it. Wait... “w _ere_ warrior sisters? Isn't that gig for life?” 

Mirabella spits a rude word in Italian.

“They left,” Mary explains. “They've never told me why, but they weren't happy when Shannon joined up. Didn't tell _her_ why either,” she adds, giving them a sideways look that says exactly what she thought about that.

“Secrets are only secrets until someone starts flapping their gums,” Mirabella says. “We never thought our Shannon would bear the burden of the Halo, or we might have told her more. Our own Halo Bearer, Sister Lucia, was very curious about it's history, though nothing she learned ever seemed to make her happy. She entrusted many documents to our care before we left, making us swear to keep them safe, and give them to the right people when the time came.” She exchanges a long look with Letizia. “We think this is that time.”

Letizia doesn't look like she's entirely convinced, but she doesn't protest when Mirabella gets up and pulls down a large chest from a shelf over the fireplace and _thumps_ it down on the table. She fishes out a key from around her neck and opens the lock, pushing back the lid with a squeal of rusty hinges. Ava cranes her neck to get a look inside. It's books... _old_ books, and are those _scrolls?_ Just how much history did this Sister Lucia dig up? 

Beatrice takes a book off the top with almost reverential care. “This is written in Latin,” she says, opening the cover. “I can read it, but the ink is so faded it's going to take some time to be sure of the translation.” =

Mary nods. “You're the expert. How long do you think it will take?”

“To go through all of these?”

“Yeah.”

Beatrice looks thoughtful. “Weeks,” she says. “Maybe a month. I'll have to cross reference everything... Camila, can we access the OCS's archives from here?”

“No, but Mother Superion can, and she's already agreed to help. I can set up a network through people we trust.”

“Good.” Mary looks between the two of them. “That's our timeline then. Find out what Sister Lucia knew and how we can use it against Adriel, while Lilith and I do what we can with Ava.”

Wait, with the what now? Ava raises a hand. “Um... you're doing  _what_ with me?” 

Mary fixes her with a look that dares Ava to argue with her, and declares without a trace of irony, “We're going to make you into the best goddamned Warrior Nun that bastard has ever seen.”

Lilith snorts into the moment of silence that follows. “I'll settle for competent.”

“I'm with her,” Ava points at Lilith. “Remember the stick? I'm not exactly warrior material here.”

“I've been thinking about that,” Beatrice offers, closing the book and placing it carefully back into the chest. “Every Warrior Nun has her own strengths and weaknesses. Ava's first instinct is to run. We've been looking at it as a weakness, but what if it's her strength? Defense instead of offence. She's already mastered phasing, and she's shown spontaneous use of both imperviousness to pain and levitation. If she can get those under conscious control they would be of great use in a fight against Adriel.”

“Sister Lucia possessed superior speed,” Mirabell says, “and I heard stories about a Warrior Nun before her who could pass unseen even on the brightest day.”

“We could focus on long-range weapons,” Camila put in. “Crossbow and firearms. We might not have time to make her into a master swordswoman, but anyone can pull a trigger.”

“Hey, now!”

“Sorry Mary.”

“We may not have the luxury of choosing our battleground,” Lilith says. “We could be fighting in close quarters, or amongst a crowd of bystanders. A divinium sword in the hands of the Halo Bearer is still our best chance against Adriel.”

“But with only a few weeks to train-”

Lilith cuts Camila off with a glare, her tone leaving no room for argument. “She'll be ready. I'll make sure of it.”

Ava's not sure if that's a promise or a threat. Either way she's pretty sure she's about to find out.

But surprisingly it's Mary who takes charge of her first. “C'mon kid, we need to get you outfitted.”

Ava is more than happy to shed yesterday's sweaty clothes and pull on the blue jeans and plaid shirt Mary gives her. The shirt is too big on her, and she has to roll the cuffs up about six times, but it's clean, and that counts for a lot right now. Mary comes back in a dark gray T shirt over her own black pants.

“Where did the clothes come from?” Ava asks, pulling her boots back on.

“Mirabella put the word out last night. This is a tight-knit community. Everyone sent what they could.”

“So they know who we are?”

“Some of 'em do. Shannon's Aunts aren't the only ex- Warrior Sisters here. The rest don't care. This town isn't big on getting into other people's business, but for now let's keep the whole Halo-thing on a need-to-know basis, all right? We don't need to draw any more attention to ourselves. You ready?”

Ava nods.

“All right then, come on.” Mary sets a brisk pace down the road towards the farms and fields, and Ava has to stretch her legs to keep up. She's really starting to regret that morning run. She's already tired and the day's barely started.

“Soo...” she falls in beside Mary, doing a little sidestep over a break in the road. “What happened here?”

“Earthquake. Scared away the last of the regular folks. Far as anyone knows, the town's been more or less abandoned.”

“And where exactly are _we_ going?”

“You'll see.”

Right. That was illuminating. Ava has a bad feeling about this, a bad feeling that worsens abruptly when a very familiar farm comes into view. “Um... Mary?”

“Yeah?”

“We're trying to lay low, right?”

“Right...”

“So, hypothetically speaking, if I had accidentally phased through a wall and scared someone's kid this morning, how pissed would you be?”

Mary stops and turns, already looking about seventy-eight percent done with Ava's bullshit. “ _Did_ you accidentally phase through a wall and scare somebody's kid this morning?”

“I... yes. That is a thing that happened.”

“Ava, I swear to-” Mary shakes her head. “You are gonna be the death of me, you know that?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Not as sorry as you will be,” she mutters under her breath. “Come on, might as well get this over with. If we're lucky she won't remember you.”

“La Ombra!” The little girl answers Mary's knock with a shout and a tiny finger pointed unerringly at Ava before slamming the door shut in their faces.

“So much for that...” Mary knocks again. This time a tired looking woman with flour in her hair and a baby on her hip answers the door. The other kid is clinging to her skirts, peeking around her mother to glare up at Ava.

“I'm sorry, Elena seems to have had a fright this morning,” (Ava studiously ignores Mary's side-eye) “she's usually more polite. I'm Isabella, what can I do for you?”

“We were actually planning on asking you that same question,” Mary says. “I'm Mary, and this is Ava. We're here visiting family; Letizia and Mirabella up the hill, and they mentioned you might be in need of some help.”

“Oh, lord bless them. They're too kind. Since Jac broke his leg things have been falling behind. I can't offer much...”

“Don't worry about that, we've got more than enough. Just point us to where we can do some good.”

*****

Ava is seriously reconsidering that whole running away thing before the morning is over.

Her wheelbarrow hits a rut in the path and tips, dumping a load of straw and sheep shit several feet short of the manure pile. “Fuck!”

“Language!” Mary calls from across the yard, emptying another bucket of water into the trough.

A giggle from behind her makes Ava whirl around, but as usual, there's no one there. The kid, Elena, has been following her all morning, sabotaging everything she tries to do and then laughing at her before disappearing again. (Okay, maybe it's not sabotage. It's possible Ava's just really bad at all this farm stuff, but definitely laughing.) Mary thinks its fucking hilarious.

Ava stomps back into the barn to get the pitchfork and gets to work righting the wheelbarrow and cleaning the mess up off the ground. Her arms are aching, and her back feels like it's been broken in about seven new places. She can feel the idle buzzing of the halo murmuring to itself between her shoulder blades, but apparently sore muscles aren't enough to wake it up and get it doing it's job, and the one time Ava sort of tried to prod it into action it flared up like a tiny, overeager sun, scaring the sheep and bringing the wrath of Mary down on her.

With the load reloaded and dumped again (properly this time,) Ava falls down in a patch of grass and gives serious thought to the benefits of _not_ feeling her arms and legs again for a little while. Mary's shadow falls over her like a judgment.

“Giving up already?”

“Yes? Is that allowed? You still haven't explained what the hell we're doing here. I know the Lord is our shepherd and all, but I don't see how shoveling sheep shit is supposed to help us defeat Adriel.”

“Ha, ha.” Mary sits down beside her, passing her a tin cup full of lukewarm water. “You're so smart, you figure it out.”

Ava props herself up on her elbow to take the cup, gulping the water down with a grimace at the earthy taste. “Is it something about humility? Because I'm feeling pretty humble right now.”

Mary tosses back her own drink, taking Ava's cup back and putting them down in the grass. “Try again.”

“Do unto others?”

“No.”

“Helping the less fortunate?”

“Wrong again, though that is a fringe benefit.”

“I give up.” Ava flops back down, toes tapping in the grass. “Teach me, oh wise Sister Warrior.”

Mary snorts. “Don't get cute.”

Ava smirks. “I'm already cute.”

“What was that about feeling humble?”

“Temporary lapse.”

“Uh huh...” Mary leans back on her hands. “Fine, why do you think everyone was so pissed when you got the Halo?”

Ava squirms around to squint up at her, sensing a trap. “Because it was supposed to go to Lilith...”

“That's part of it, but the line of succession has been muddied up before.”

“Because I'm not a nun?”

“Neither was Areala.”

One of these days someone was actually going to give Ava a straight answer about something and the universe would implode in shock. She frowns, thinking past the ache in her shoulders. What did Lilith and Areala have in common? “I'm not a warrior...”

“ _Now_ you're getting somewhere.” Mary gives her a nod of approval. “The Halo grants it's bearer enormous power, but a true Warrior Nun has to be tough enough to channel and direct that power. The strength has to come from _you,”_ she pokes her in the shoulder. “and so far, every time you've unleashed it you've ended up flat on your back.”

“Hey!” Ava sits up. “Are you saying I'm _soft?_ ”

“As a baby's behind.”

Okay, on the one hand, rude, on the other... “Well at least you're not calling me a coward.”

“No one thinks you're a coward.”

Ava pulls up a few blades of grass, rolling them between her fingers to release their sweet green sent. “Beatrice does.”

Mary twists around to give her an exaggerated double take. “Now where in Hell did you get that idea?”

Ava shrugs, shredding the last little bits of grass. “That's what she said.”

“Beatrice told you that? In those words?”

“Well no,” Ava admits. “Not in those words, but that's why she came after me this morning...”

Mary rolls her eyes up to the sky. “Oh Lord, save me from all your god damned stupid little children.” She drops her gaze back to Ava. “Beatrice didn't rush out after you because she thought you were running _away._ She thought you were running _back!”_

“Back?” Ava asks dumbly. “Back, where?”

“Back to take on Adriel and Vincent, because you have this dumbass idea in your head that you have to be the last person to die for all this shit.”

Ava blinks. “But that would be...”

“Stupid? Suicidal? I have a few other words for it, but we don't have all day. The point is, I told her you might be an idiot, but you weren't a complete fool, and she didn't believe me. So, she may not give you full credit for brains, but she sure as shit doesn't think you're a coward.”

“Oh...” she files that information away to think about later. She _might_ just owe Beatrice an apology...

“Yeah, _oh!”_ Mary shakes her head, muttering something about children under her breath and gets back to her feet, hauling Ava up after her. “Come on, let's get back to work.”

“So all of this...” Ave gestures to the farmyard. “Is what? To toughen me up?”

Mary nods. “Yeah, that, and you might as well be useful at the same time.”

Ava wrinkles her nose. “I don't suppose I can order you to find another way to get me in shape?”

“Nope.” Mary picks up the pitchfork and shoves it back into her hands. “Get going.”

“This is mutiny,” Ava grumbles, but she takes the pitchfork.

Mary looks her up and down, one eyebrow raised in a skeptical arch. “Funny, I don't recall swearing allegiance to your skinny white ass.”

“Hey, I'm the Warrior Nun!” Ava does a little sword swoop with the fork handle. “Doesn't that whole leader thing just... come with the territory?”

“Maybe,” Mary shrugs, “if you actually _were_ the Warrior Nun. Right now you're a just a Warrior Nun in training, and that means I'm in charge. If I tell you to shovel shit until you have the muscle to back up that mouth, then you'll shovel shit. Understood?”

Ava pouts. This was not the training montage she'd been imagining when she decided to throw herself into this hero business. Still... she thinks about Isabella and how tired she looked with two kids, a farm to run and a husband in bed with a broken leg, and this probably isn't Mary's idea of a good time either, but she's putting her back to it right beside Ava. Beatrice and Camilla gave up their home with the church to fight for what they believe in. Lilith has been through something none of them understood, is still going through it, and she hasn't given up.

“Fine,” Ava trudges back towards her wheelbarrow. “Let's do this.”

*****

After lunch it's Lilith's turn.

Lilith, it turns out, does not look one bit less intimidating in black jeans and a soft gray sweater than she did in actual armour with a literal sword aimed in Ava's direction. Maybe it's the hair; almost completely white now and tied back in a severe braid that brings the angles of her face into stark relief. Or the eyes, weirdly softer than when she'd been entirely human, but deeper too; eyes that had seen more than Ava could possibly imagine.

It could also be the stick.

“Don't I get a stick?” Ava asks, turning on the spot to keep a circling Lilith in sight. They've gone _up_ the hill this time, to a small grassy area above the town. There's a scraggly line of trees lending a bit of privacy, for which Ava is grateful. She could do without a audience for what she is increasingly sure is going to be an embarrassing afternoon of getting her ass handed to her.

“Not this time. First, you must learn to use the Halo properly, modulating it's power while remaining focused on the task at hand.”

“Modulating the what now?”

“The Halo.” Lilith changes direction smoothly, sweeping the stick low and forcing Ava to jump back or lose an ankle. “Given free rein it will announce it's presence to any demon within range, including the Tarask. A Warrior Nun must learn to contain that power, using it sparingly, and only when necessary.”

“Isn't that why Vincent made me wear that vest? To hide the Halo from the Tarask?”

Lilith shakes her head, aiming another strike at Ava's shoulder and pulling it when she doesn't move quite fast enough. “Pay attention!” She attacks again, nodding in grudging approval when Ava ducks and rolls, coming back up to her feet with only a little bobble. “Better, but no, not hide it, only contain and direct it. When _you_ use the Halo, you use it like a battering ram, or an avalanche. You make a lot of noise, but you have no control.”

“Hey!” Ava stops, facing Lilith squarely. “It took everything the Halo had to phase through that wall, and I had to deal with some pretty intense shit to get there.”

Lilith straightens out of her stalking crouch, letting the end of the stick drop. “You wouldn't have needed that much power if you'd been properly trained.”

“Well, not to shit on the whole legacy or anything, but more power is better, isn't it?”

“Not always.”

“I'm pretty sure it is, yeah.”

“Fine,” Lilith turns to the jug of water they brought with them, pouring some into a cup and setting it aside. “Are you thirsty?”

“Yeah, kinda...”

“Here,” Lilith takes the jug and dumps it over Ava's head, drenching her to the skin and half-drowning her.

“What the fuck was that for!?” She splutters, wiping water out of her eyes.

“ _That_ is how _you_ use the Halo. _This,”_ Lilith raises the cup to her lips and takes a sip, “is how a properly trained Warrior Nun uses the Halo. Which of us is still thirsty?”

Ava eyes her through a tangle of wet hair, weighs the pros and cons of kicking her in the shins, and reluctantly gives it up as a bad idea. “All right, I'll give you that one. How do I do this?”

Lilith lays a hand over her heart. “Hold the power within you; using only what you need instead of flinging it out in every directing. Subtlety, not savagery.”

Ava is pretty damned sure there is not, and has never been anything subtle about Lilith, but she keeps that thought to herself. “Fine, I'll give it a shot.”

They step back into place and before Ava is ready for it, Lilith becomes a Lilith-shaped blur; the stick arcs down on her shoulder with a sharp _crack_ , numbing her arm and making her stumble back with a yelp. It comes back again, but this time she's ready and she lets it phase through her, feeling the little bits of wood-ness separating around all the Ava bits, and then reconnecting on the other side. The Halo blazes happily, sending cheerful golden curls of power down her spine and healing the damage to her shoulder before the stick finishes it's sweep.

“No!” Lilith falls back with a frown. “Not like that.”

Ava is confused. “Why? You _want_ me to get hit?”

“No, I want you to learn restraint. Try again.”

Lilith doesn't give her any more warning than that, and Ava is scrambling to stay out of her reach, ducking, and dodging attacks that seem to be coming from all sides at once. She phases again with a flash of light and Lilith knocks her down with a growl. “I said _less_ power.”

“I don't understand what you _mean!”_ Ava shouts back, feeling the Halo heat up in response.

Lilith's lip curls in a sneer that's trying very hard not to be a snarl. Claws bite into the wood of her stick. She draws it back as if to strike and then throws it aside, looking down at her hands in confusion. “Ava, I...”

“Hey, hey... don't get upset.” Ava climbs slowly back to her feet, trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. “It's okay, I have that effect on people. Maybe we need to take a little break.”

“We don't have _time...”_

“Better a five minute break than disemboweling your student,” Ava jokes, grinning when that gets her an annoyed glare instead of a murderous one. “I mean, I'd heal, but think of the bloodstains.”

“You're not funny.”

“And you're not exactly a natural teacher, but it looks like we're stuck with each other, so... explain it to me again?”

Lilith tries, and Ava tries (she really does,) but all of this _hold the power within you_ stuff is easier said than done. She's bruised and bloody, and Lilith is about one more power flare away from murdering her for real this time when Camila comes to find them. “Thank fuck,” she mutters under her breath. The light is already fading, and she was beginning to worry that Lilith was going to keep her out here all night. Maybe that Tarask gave her weird see-in-the-dark eyes to go with those claws.

“Shouldn't we be going that way?” Ava points left when Camila turns right.

“Oh, we've moved into that little hotel on the main street. Mary thought it would be better to have our own place. It needs some work, but no one was using it, and there's enough room for all of us.” She's as chipper as ever, and Ava let's her chatter fill the silence, nodding along as she describes the hotel, it's rooms and facilities, and what they'll need to do to make it more comfortable. Of all the warrior sisters, Ava feels the least close to Camila, but the little nun has a certain tenacious optimism and grit in the face of overwhelming odds that she admires. 

Lilith is somewhat less delighted with the one sided conversation. She hangs back behind them, an angular shape in the gathering darkness. Ava leaves her alone, but in spite of her new bruises, having Lilith at her back isn't the threat it used to be. No, wait, that's wrong. Having Lilith at her back is one hundred and ten percent a threat, only not to  _Ava,_ but to anyone or anything that might try to  _hurt_ Ava. This new Lilith is as fiercely protective as Camila is cheerful. Not that it'll stop her from kicking Ava's ass, but even that has a different vibe to it now. Lilith isn't trying to break Ava down anymore, she's trying to build her up. It still hurts, but it's a good hurt, if that makes sense. 

The hotel is the same warm yellow stone as the rest of the town with a red tile roof, built in a square around a small courtyard, and Ava understands immediately why Mary wanted it. The courtyard will give her somewhere to train away from well meaning, but prying eyes, and it's got everything they need; running water and electricity, (not a guarantee in this town, with half the infrastructure lost to the earthquake,) a central kitchen and dining room, and a small suite for each of them. Quarters were close at Cat's Cradle, but everyone had their own room, and Ava's sure tempers would have begun to fray if they'd all stayed crowded together in Letizia and Mirabella's little house. 

They walk in the front door and Ava's knees go weak at the unmistakable smell of dinner. Of all the things she's gained since leaving the orphanage, good food is definitely in the top five.

“We've already eaten,” Camila says, showing them the way to the kitchen, “but we put plates aside for you.”

Ava is grateful to wash up and take her plate and a glass of water and collapse at the old wooden kitchen table. She loves her new family, but just the thought of trying to hold a conversation right now makes her want to cry, she's _that_ tired. It's not the delirious exhaustion from the night before, but it's close. Even the Halo is subdued. She can feel a quite hum if she reaches for it, but the afternoon of training seems to have tapped it out. Dinner is lamb stew on a bed of pasta, and Ava suspects it was sent down by Letizia or Mirabella, because the pasta is amazing, and as wonderful as the sisters are, she doesn't think any of them have been hand-cutting noodles while she was out.

Lilith eats as quickly as Ava, and Camila takes pity on them, taking their dishes and washing them quickly in the big country sink before hustling them off to their rooms.

“Here, you are,” she says, opening a dark wood door with a burnished number three on it. “Mary and Beatrice are down the hall, and Lilith and I will be around the corner. Sleep tight!”

“Good night.”

The room is painted a pale, eggshell blue, with a worn wooden floor and lacy white curtains. There's an antique washbasin with a mirror, and a little white dresser. The double bed frame is wrought iron, and there's a new patchwork quilt laid over the darker blue sheets. Ava closes the door behind her and leans back against it, breathing in the night air from the open window. This is it, home for as long as it takes to make her into someone worthy of the Halo in her back.

She almost misses Cat's Cradle. It was never _her_ home, but there had been that brief hope, after she had decided to go back, but before she found out about Durretti's coup, that it could have been. Still, she wonders if they might find a way to make it home again, after all of this is over.

The knock startles her.

She considers ignoring it, but curiosity wins out.

“Beatrice, hey... I thought you'd already gone to bed.” She hides a yawn behind her hand, holding the door open with the other.

“I waited up,” Beatrice admits, coming in and letting Ava close the door behind her. She's dressed as simply as Ava's ever seen her, in dark linen pants and a long sleeved shirt. Her hair is out of it's usual bun, instead pulled back in two loose tails. It softens the lines of her face, making her look younger, closer to Ava's age than Mary or Lilith's.

“You worried about me?” Ava jokes.

“Hardly. I brought this for you.” She hands Ava a slim book bound in brown leather. “I found it in the trunk Mirabella gave us. It's a journal. There's nothing in there about Adriel or the history of the Halo as far as I could see, but the author was like you, someone who came to the Halo and the OCS by accident. I thought you might enjoy it.”

“Thank you...” Ava takes the book, running her fingers over the worn leather. “I mean it, this...” she looks up at Beatrice, blinking back a suspicious stinging in the corners of her eyes that's probably as much to do with how tired she is as the thoughtfulness of the gift. “This means a lot.”

“I'm glad.” Beatrice's answering smile is warm, and just a little unsure. “I should go, you need your sleep...”

“Wait,” Ava calls her back.

“Yes?”

“I...” she hesitates, she wants to ask about what Mary said this morning, but it feels self indulgent and she's not exactly sure how to apologize for acting like a brat without revealing her sources. “Do you really think I can do this?” she asks instead.

“I do,” Beatrice says with absolute certainty.

“What if you're wrong?”

“Then we'll find another way. Together.”

“You mean that?”

“Always.”

“Okay.” Ava feels something deep in her chest that was wound too tight suddenly loosen.

“But Ava?”

“Yeah?”

Beatrice lowers her voice, brow furrowed. “There's something you need to do first...”

Ava leans in closer. “What?”

“Take a bath, because you really smell.”

“You _!”_ Ava would have thrown the book after her but Beatrice is already gone. Damned sneaky ninja nun! Still... she takes a whiff of herself and has to admit she has a point. Sheep and sweat are not a great combination. Okay, first a bath, then sleep, and then tomorrow she's going to _rock_ this Warrior Nun thing!

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Castelluccio Di Norcia is a real place, and there really was an earthquake that drove most of the population away, but it's not really a hideaway for runaway lesbian nuns. I made that part up. ;)
> 
> Feel free to come find at me on tumblr or Twitter. I'm still getting my twitter account going and it's mostly art so far, but I'm happy to yell at people about Warrior Nun. :) 
> 
> https://blackteaandbones.tumblr.com/  
> https://twitter.com/blackteandbones


	3. Everyday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The following morning is free of crisis, existential or otherwise. Ava isn't even awake yet when Camilla bursts into her room like a mother fucking ray of sunshine. It's sickening. She's surprised there aren't any singing birds or dancing mice, that's how Disney this bitch is.

(Ava is not a morning person. If anyone was wondering.)

Camilla is beatifically oblivious. She's in braids and overalls for God's sake, and she ignores Ava's grumbling and death glares, stealing her blankets and smiling way too much for someone who is rapidly coming within an inch of being murdered for the crime of being too goddamned cheerful to be real.

“Come _on_ Ava! Mary asked me to go shopping, and I don't want to go by myself!”

“Go _aw_ -” wait. Ava lifts the corner of pillow she's pulled over her head just enough to peek out. “Did you say shopping?”

Camilla beams. “If you hurry, we might have time to get Gelato...” she wheedles.

“I'm getting up.”

Yeah, she's easy. Get over it.

There's a clean black shirt in the dresser and once Camilla has bounced out, Ava strips and changes in record time. Yesterday's jeans are a disaster, but they're all she has so she brushes the worst of the dirt off them and pulls them on. The jug by the washbasin has actual water in it and she uses it to wash her face and hands, drying off with the soft blue towel hanging off the side of the table. Her hair is... fine. She finger combs it as best she can, mentally adding some basic shit like a hairbrush to her shopping list. She has no idea what they're planning to use for money, but she has faith in Mary to have figured that out already.

The little hotel is a lot shabbier by daylight. Ava gets turned around looking for the way back down to the kitchen and the fist set of stairs she finds are a collapsed ruin under a hole in the roof big enough to let in a wide fall of the early morning sun. That whole side of the building looks shaky to be honest, and Ava backtracks to her room and tries again, grateful not to have put a foot through the floor. She makes it downstairs in one piece only to find breakfast has already been pretty thoroughly picked over. There's nothing left but empty platters, cold coffee and a single basket with a few ragged slices of bread. Even the jam jar has been scraped clean.

Mary and Lilith are nowhere to be seen, but Beatrice has claimed one end of the table, sitting cross legged on the bench with books, scrolls, and page after page of notes spread out in front of her. Ava zeroes in on the plate at her elbow where a single forgotten strawberry turnover sits on a generous bed of crumbs.

“Don't even think about it.” Beatrice says without looking up.

“I wasn't,” Ava lies, dropping down beside her and reaching across the table for the bread.

Beatrice watches her try (and fail) to spread the thin smear of jam she managed to excavate from the empty jar onto her bread and sighs, pushing her plate over. “Here.”

“Seriously?”

“Take it. You're too pathetic to tease.”

Ava doesn't wait to be told a third time, jamming half the turnover into her mouth. “Thanks ' _berry_ much,” she mumbles around a mouthful of pastry and strawberries.

Beatrice just rolls her eyes and goes back to her books. “Try not to get crumbs all over my notes.”

Ava salutes, adding the last of the bread and a cold cup of coffee to her haul before swinging her legs back over the bench and jumping up to go look for Camilla. She finds her outside poking around under the hood of the oldest (and ugliest) car she's even seen. The colour might have been mint green once, where it's not red with rust. It looks like it could seat one and a half people comfortably and it sounds like it's choking on a lawnmower.

Ava finishes chewing and swallows. “Nice ride.”

Camilla straightens up and slams the hood closed, wiping her hands clean on a towel slung over her shoulder. “Isn't she beautiful? Mirabella loaned her to us.1968 Berlina with the original engine. Give her a little TLC and she'll run for another twenty.”

Twenty minutes maybe. Ava keeps that thought to herself. “You sure it's safe?”

“Perfectly.”

Oh well, she could probably heal from a fiery car crash if she had to. Ava shrugged. “Good enough for me. Where are we headed?”

“Ascoli Piceno in Le Marche,” Camilla says, opening the driver's side door. “It's only a few hours away, and there's a shopping center that should have enough tourists to hide us in the crowd.” 

They pile in. Ava was right about the interior, but once she pushes her seat back as far as it will go it's not so bad. She's never been so glad to be short. There's no air conditioning, so they leave the windows down, and the grinding rattle of the engine makes conversation almost impossible. The road they take down out of the hills isn't so much of a road as a rutted track that threatens to disappear entirely more than once before finally merging with the main road a few hundred feet or so below the rock slide. Ava turns to look back over her shoulder, but there's no sign of their abandoned get away car.

Camilla follows her gaze. “Mary had it taken back to the highway and left fifty miles in the wrong direction. If anyone finds it, they won't look up here.” 

“Smart,” Ava says, wondering how many other little things she hadn't even thought of. Mary was right. She's not ready to be a leader. Not now and maybe not ever. But... maybe that's okay. She has a team now. She doesn't _have_ to do it all, she just needs to focus on her own shit; learning how to use the Halo without burning out. 

Which begs the question... “Why me?” 

“What?” Camilla shouts over the engine. 

“Why me? Why bring me along? Aren't I supposed to be training?”

“Mary says no one goes anywhere alone. Beatrice was busy, and someone has to keep an eye on Lilith.” 

“So I was like... your third choice then?” 

Camilla shakes her head. “No, that's just how I convinced Mary to let you go. Would  _you_ want to take either of them? Mary hates shopping, and Lilith would probably eat someone.” 

Ava can't help it, she laughs. It's just... she doesn't even know. It's all so ridiculous. Her life is ridiculous. She  _died!_ There's a hunk of super powered metal in her back that may or may not be an actual angel's halo. Either way it liked her enough to bring her back from the dead. She's on the run with  _nuns._ They're trying to save the goddamned world. She has to learn how to use a  _sword._ And the most unbelievable part? 

She's not alone. 

For better or for worse, she has people (or in Lilith's case, people-shaped beings.) 

“Music?” she asks, rummaging through a pile of cassettes in a box under the dash. She grabs one at random and pushes it into the player. (This really is an ancient fucking car.) Turns out it's some kind of classic rock mix, and she cranks it up. Her mom used to listen to music like this. She remembers dancing in the kitchen, singing into a wooden spoon while her mom made grilled cheese sandwiches and joined in on the choruses. 

For the first time in a long time the memory doesn't hurt. 

She watches the Italian countryside go by, fingers tapping along with the music against her thigh. 

“Oh, hey I know this one!” Camilla says a few minutes later. “ _Don't stop me now,”_ she sings along with Freddie Mercury, surprising the hell out of Ava (Queen isn't exactly choir music.) Not only does she know the lyrics, she's actually pretty damned good. Hands keeping the beat on the wheel, she belts out the chorus, and before Ava realizes it, she's singing too.

“ _If you wanna have a good time, just give me a call  
Don't stop me now ('cause I'm having a good time)  
Don't stop me now (yes, I'm havin' a good time)  
I don't want to stop at all.”_

By the time they get to the third verse they're both singing at top volume, and what Ava lacks in talent she makes up for in enthusiasm, adding in a little air guitar and jamming as best she can in the passenger seat. After that song there's another, and another, and if they don't know the lyrics to all of them, they fake it, giggling their way through Bowie and the Rolling Stones from Umbria to Le Marche. Her stomach hurts from laughing before they make it to the Bricocenter. It's the most fun Ava's had in years. 

Shopping is a close second though. It's Ava's first time in a big shopping center since her accident, and she only has hazy memories of malls back in America. “Oh. My. God...” she says, turning a little circle in the middle of the first floor. “Have I told you how much I freaking love you yet? Because I freaking love you.” 

Camilla grins, sharing in Ava's shameless delight. “Where do you want to start?”

“Everywhere...” 

They give it their best shot. Ava darts from store to store, practicing her Italian on indulgent shopkeepers and drinking in the people, lights and the noise and she sheer normalcy of it all. They do manage to buy clothes for everyone along with all the other necessities it's easy to forget about until they're gone. Camilla knows everyone's measurements from her time in the Cradle's sewing room, and Ava spends a glorious hour trying on everything that catches her eye and pestering Camilla into a few things too. She ends up with an armful of practical clothes for training and chores; settling for darker colours, greys and navies. There's a part of her that longs for all the bright and flowing designs, but it's like she wants them for the Ava she could have been, not the Ava she is now; practical, badass. Grown up. 

(She  _does_ indulge in a heavy black leather jacket to replace the one she had to leave behind though. A girl has to have  _some_ fun.)

They finish up with the promised Gelato on a little outdoor patio, and  _this_ is heaven. Chocolate and hazelnut heaven. Ava tries to savour it, but all too soon she's scraping the bottom of the bowl.

“So,” Ava says, trying to make the last three bites last as long as possible. “What's your story?”

“My story?”

“Yeah, I know why Mary, Lilith and Beatrice ended up in the OCS, but so far all I know about you is that you're just as good with a computer or an old car as your are with a crossbow, and you have unexpectedly good taste in music for a nun. So spill. Why the church?”

“I liked the quiet,” Camilla says. “No, really” she adds when Ava makes a noise of disbelief around her spoon. “I have a _huge_ family. Seven brothers and sisters, all of them older than me with these big ideas about who they were going to be and what they were going to do, and they all wanted me to follow in their footsteps.” She took a bite of her Cinnamon Almond. “Let's see... I learned computers from David, cars from Laura, Emmett was in the archery club, he made me my first bow and taught me how to shoot it in the field out back. Abby tried to make me into her sous chef, but I was never very good in the kitchen. The twins were in a band and they had to approve all my music choices. Liam wrestled, and he insisted on showing me how to get out of all the holds...” she sighs. “Sometimes I think my Grandmother started taking me to church just to give me a break once a week.” 

“Damn...” Ava can't imagine growing up like that. “So the church was a literal sanctuary for you huh?” 

Camilla shrugs. “At first it was just a place to sit and think my own thoughts and I liked the music. The choir director was also the piano teacher, and that was the first thing I learned just because I wanted to. Eventually I realized I felt like more like myself in God's house than I did in my own. So as soon as I finished high school I joined the church. Mother Superion recruited me for the OCS a few years later, and here I am.” 

“On the run from demons with an untrained Halo Bearer and all the might of the Vatican on our ass...”

“Doing Gods work,” Camilla corrects her, “and helping my friends. There's nowhere else I'd rather be.” 

Ava wonders if she'll ever feel half so certain of anything as Camilla does about God's plan. She doubts it. Some people were just built for belief. If there  _was_ a God, he'd put her together differently. “Let's go,” she says, crumpling up her garbage and tossing it into the nearest bin. “Mary's going to kick both our butts if we're not back before dark.” 

Camilla surprises her by pulling over halfway back to the village, turning the car off and offering Ava the keys. “Want to learn how to drive?” 

“Are you serious?”

“Why not? I had a whole family to teach me. We're your family now, so that's our job. What do you think?” 

“I think you're my new best friend! Shove over...” 

*****

“So you crashed.”

“I did _not_ crash!” Ava throws one of her carrots across the table at Mary who (predictably) catches it and throws it right back. Ava lets it phase through her, wincing when it ricochets off the tea kettle instead and bounces back to land with a splash in the gravy. Lilith spears it with the tip of her knife and eats it off the point.

“Children, please...” Beatrice implores, wiping a spot of gravy off the corner of her book. 

“I might,” Ava continues, not missing a beat, “ _might_ have gone just the _tiniest_ bit off the road, but there was totally a rabbit, and that pothole wasn't my fault!” 

“There _was_ a rabbit,” Camilla backs her up, “but it was already dead.” 

“You swerved off the road for a _dead_ rabbit?” Mary's hooting with laughter now. 

Ava grabs a potato off her plate, but Beatrice is faster, wrapping a hand around her wrist before she can throw it. 

“For the love of God, no more flying produce.” 

“But _Beatrice...”_

“Drop it.”

Ava drops it, but only because she's too hungry to waste perfectly good food on Mary's face.

“Thank you,” Beatrice lets her go, and Ava rubs her wrist, pouting.

“The car is fine, really,” Camilla puts in. “She did pretty well for a beginner.”

“Well, I hope you enjoyed your day off Ava,” Lilith says, ignoring Mary's laughter and Camilla's earnest encouragement. “Because tomorrow we get back to work.”

She's not lying. The following week is (not to put too fine a point on it) absolute fucking Hell. Mary has her out of bed at dawn every morning,and after a quick breakfast of coffee and toast, drags her around the sparsely populated little town finding every dirty, difficult or just plain odd job that needs doing. They meet pretty much everyone within the first few days, and Ava gets a crash course in 'learning how to talk to people like a normal fucking person,' as Mary puts it. She also learns how to repair a fence, weed a garden (that was a harder lesson for the poor lettuce than it was for Ava,) clean a house, and take care of every kind of farm animal from a chicken to a horse. (Chickens are cute, if stupid, and horses are terrifying hell beasts sent by the devil to break every single one of her toes.)

They start working on the Hotel when there aren't any other jobs to do. Mary is surprisingly good with a hammer and a saw, and Lilith has an eye for structure. She keeps a running list of repairs, and Mary and Ava steadily cross them out. People from the town start showing up to help. There's an electrician and a plumber, who restore power and water to the damaged side of the building, and a near endless stream of regular folks with an extra set of sheets here, and a couple of blankets there. The kitchen starts to look like a real kitchen, with pots and pans and cupboards full of food and spices.

“I thought we were _laying low,”_ Ava says to Mary in the midst of all of this.

Mary shrugs and holds her hand out for another nail. “Laying low is good, fitting in is better.”

Letizia and Mirabella officially move in once the place is livable, which is a blessing, because none of them really know how to cook anything more complicated than an egg. Mirabella takes Ava under her wing and shows her the basics, chasing Mary and Lilith off with a rolling pin when she's decided Ava needs a break from their tender ministrations. Ava's never going to make a chef, and she's not sure if cooking is really something she _likes_ but she enjoys being in the kitchen with Mirabella. The old woman has this big, warm, _mom-_ type energy that has been sorely lacking in her life.

“Did you and Letizia ever want kids?” she asks one evening. They're making cookies (by far one of Ava's favourite tasks,) and Ava is spooning blobs of sticky dough onto the tray, sprinkling them with flour and pressing them flat with a fork. The Halo is a steady warmth between her shoulder blades, recharging after a brutal lesson with Lilith. It likes Mirabella too, Ava can tell. It always has a bright, cheerful energy when they work with her.

Mirabella pauses in her stirring. “We talked about it, oh... three or four times, but we weren't so young anymore when we left the Church, and the vows we took, they aren't easy to forget. Breaking a promise to God... even when you believe the promise was unfair, or unnecessary, it leaves a scar, here,” she lays a floury hand over her heart. “I think maybe we thought we'd dared enough, leaving and loving each other. Asking for more seemed like hubris. We had each other, and nieces and nephews enough to fill in the cracks.”

“That doesn't seem right.” Ava scrapes the last ball of dough out of the bowl and Mirabella takes the finished tray and slides it into the oven.

“Right, wrong...” she shrugs, wiping her hands on her apron. “Sometimes it's not about what's right, it's about what you can live with. You take a little and you give a little. No one ever gets everything they want in this life.”

Ava thinks about that a lot over the next few days. She thinks about the Halo; what it gave to her and what it might take in return. She can walk, she can run and fight (sort of, it's a work in progress.) She's alive, free of the orphanage, free of Sister Frances and life stuck in a bed. She has friends and a family, a purpose... how can she possibly pay all that back? Sometimes, when she's alone in the middle of the night, she thinks she knows what the Halo might demand, and she wonders if that's how it really chooses it's bearers. Maybe the Halo has to give as much as it's going to take, and in Ava's case that's... everything.

Some mornings she's grateful when Mary appears to hustle her through another day.

Lilith claims her afternoons. They keep working on her mastery of the Halo, but they also start on her sword work, and basic hand to hand. Mary often comes along to those lessons. Lilith grudgingly admits that when it comes to all out brawling and dirty fighting there's no one better for Ava to learn from. They work well together. Lilith seems more... herself when Mary is there. Less _grrr argh_ with the claws and otherworldly rage (normal Lilith rage is more than enough for Ava.) She actually smiles. One time she laughed.

That's not to say she's a bad teacher the rest of the time. She does her best to be patient, and if she's hard to please it's because Ava has so very far to go, and Lilith has promised to get her there. (They all _need_ her to get there.) The Halo in turn burns fiercely for Lilith, echoing the passion she puts into them. Ava learns, not quickly, or easily, but she does learn. The sword feels more or more familiar in her hand, and she's building muscle and confidence in herself.

It's Hell... but in a good way.

*****

Ava drags herself up the stairs through sheer force of will.  _Everything_ hurts. Even her  _eyes_ hurt. She can feel the Halo doing it's best to numb the pain, but Lilith had pushed them both to the breaking point and beyond today and they  _still_ aren't getting it. She understands the  _theory,_ but in practice she's still either grabbing too much power and draining the Halo dry halfway through a fight, or not using enough and getting knocked on her ass three moves in. According to Lilith, she's not trying hard enough, but Lilith thinks trying harder is the answer to everything. After a solid week of failure, Ava's seriously starting to question her methods; the more she fights to control the Halo the more it resists her. 

This hallway is unbelievably long. She stumbles into a room, realizing belatedly that it isn't hers. Books on every surface except the bed, no other signs of habitation, and almost painfully clean. Must be Beatrice's. Ava knows she should turn around and leave, but she literally doesn't think she can take the  extra twenty steps to her own door. She's sure she'll be forgiven just this once, Nuns are supposed to be all forgiving and shit, right? Right.

Decision made, she throws herself down on Beatrice's bed, star-fishing across the perfectly tucked sheets and blankets. She _does_ kick her boots off first. She's not a complete heathen. She doesn't mean to fall asleep, just rest for a few minutes so she can make it her own bed, but she's so comfortable and it's been a _really_ long day... 

She wakes up with something soft under her head, and fingers carding gently through her hair. 

“Ava?”

She realizes she's laying on someone's lap. That's new. Nice. Comfy. (Bear with her, her brain is taking a minute to come up to full processing power.) Oh. This is  _Beatrice's_ lap. She really should... stop. Being there. “No,” she mumbles into soft linen pants. 

Beatrice laughs softly. “Come on, that can't be a comfortable way to sleep.” 

“S'very comfortable.” 

“Mirabella sent up some dinner for you.”

Ava opens one eye and her stomach growls. Dammit. Her only weakness.

“Whassit?”

“Turkey and dumplings.” 

Fuck. “Okay.” She sits up reluctantly and scrubs a hand over her face, relieved to learn she hasn't drooled all over Beatrice's legs. “How long was I out?”

“About three hours.” 

“M'sorry I took over your bed.”

“You were very tired,” Beatrice makes her excuses for her, smoothing it over the way Ava knew she would. So she doesn't have to look too carefully at why she ended up in this room, in this bed, when Camilla's was closer. “Here,” Beatrice takes a plate covered in foil from the bedside table and hands it to her. 

“Thanks.” It smells amazing. Ava unwraps it and digs in, leaning back against the headboard and using her lap as a table. She probably should have taken the food and left, but she's starving and no one asked her to go. Beatrice picks up her book from the bed beside her, and opens it to where she left off, leaving Ava alone to eat. Ava watches her out of the corner of her eye. Of all the sisters, she's seen the least of Beatrice this past week. First up, and often absent from dinner, with the light under her door shining long after everyone else is in bed, she's been a ghost in the hotel, pouring herself into the monumental task given to her by Letizia and Mirabella. Camilla's been helping, but no one reads as many languages as fluently as Beatrice. When she's not reading, she's making notes, writing translations and sending Camilla off to call Mother Superion and find corroborating texts from the Cradle or the Vatican, or any other catholic library they can hack, bribe or threaten their way into. 

She hasn't found what they're looking for yet, but the pile of notes keeps growing, and Ava has faith she'll figure it out. She only hopes she doesn't kill herself trying first. 

“Did you get any of this?” Ava asks, pointing her fork at her dinner. 

“Letizia bullied me into eating, yes.”

Ava stabs an errant bite of dumpling. “You should take better care of yourself.”

Beatrice lowers the book to look her up and down. “I could say the same about you. You're exhausted. You barely moved when I came up, and you  _never_ miss dinner.” 

“I _know_ right?” Ava sets her empty plate aside and rests her head back against the wall, pressing her hands over her eyes. “It's the Halo. I just can't figure it out. Sometimes we're totally in sync, and everything makes sense, others I can't draw on it at all, and _forget_ using any other powers. Lilith says I have to learn how to control the energy flow before I can hope to master anything new, but I'm apparently the dumbest Halo bearer ever, because I'm not getting it.”

“You're not dumb Ava,” Beatrice says immediately. “Warrior sisters train for years before they're even considered as successors for the Halo. There are ways to learn discipline outside of combat. Perhaps Lilith's teaching style simply isn't the right one for you.” 

Ava drops her hands into her lap, sitting up and fixing Beatrice with a look that's equal parts disbelief and hysteria. “Well if it isn't, we're fucked, because she's the only one of us who even came close to being trained to carry this thing.” 

Beatrice shrugs one shoulder, long fingers sliding between the pages of her book, eyes downcast and a curtain of straight black hair falling forward from behind her ear. It's still so strange to see her like this, without her habit or any of the other bits and pieces that make a nun. Long sleeves and loose pants hide the muscle Ava knows is there. She looks small and tired, but her eyes, when she tips her chin up to meet Ava's frank stare are as darkly sharp as the rest of her is soft, and the set of her jaw is newly determined. “I could teach you. I was never in line, but I've read the journal, and these books,” she gestures around the room, “there's a wealth of information there that's been lost to the OCS for years. I may not yet know how to defeat Adriel, but I believe I can help you master the Halo.” 

“Seriously?” Ava could kiss her, only not. See: Nun. (Bury that thought and throw away the shovel.) “When can we start?”

“Now if you're up to it.”

Ava takes a glance at the darkened window.“Isn't it like... after midnight?”

“This may be best done under the cover of darkness,” Beatrice says, not without a trace of humour. “I doubt Lilith would take kindly to my interference.”

“Uh... yeah, that would be accurate. Okay, what do we do?” 

“First, get comfortable.” 

They end up sitting cross legged on the bed, knee to knee, almost touching but not quite. Beatrice has Ava close her eyes and focus only on her breathing for what seems like forever. Ava is... not very good at it. 

“Try to sit still!” Beatrice says for the third time, reaching out to physically stop her foot from twitching. 

“I can't help it,” Ava hisses back. 

Instead of telling her to try harder, the way Lilith might have, Beatrice asks “What's getting in your way?” 

Ava opens her eyes. “It's just... being still and breathing. It's a lot like my old life, when I didn't have any other choice, you know?” 

“I can see how that might be a problem.” she thinks for a moment. “Maybe you need a touchstone. Here,” she lays her hands palm-up on her knees. “Give me your hands.”

Ava hesitates, but she has no idea why. It's just a feeling, like standing on the edge of a cliff and knowing it's about to crumble under your feet. It's probably nothing. She's probably just tired. She gives Beatrice her hands and closes her eyes again, trying to focus only on the air flowing in and out of her lungs. Immediately it's easier. She's not alone, not lost in a vast space by herself with nothing but the sound of her own breath. 

“Think about the Halo,” Beatrice says once Ava has settled into her breathing. “Feel it's power within you, both apart from you and a part of you. Don't try to use it, just be aware of it.” 

Okay, she can do that. Ava opens her mind to the Halo. It's slow and sleepy right now, like a cat laying in a patch of sun. She can feel it's awareness of her as an absent nod of approval.  _Yes, yes, I see you. Good job, now can we go back to sleep?_ She's projecting of course, the Halo doesn't actually speak, but there's definitely something there, looking back at her. It should probably be terrifying, but in a weird way she finds it reassuring. They're in this together, the Halo and her. 

“Once you feel that connection, let a little of the power flow from the Halo down to your hands. Don't try to control it, just focus on the way your hands feel in mine and the power should follow.”

The Halo is confused at first (she's been pushing and pulling at it all week, getting increasing frustrated, and it's expressed it's frustration in turn,) but also curious. Ava doesn't rush it. Beatrice's hands are warm around hers. Gentle, but also strong. She has callouses from the armoury of weapons she's mastered, older and less rough than Ava's (newly won from a week of hard labour.) They're the kind of hands that get things done, not with force, but with pinpoint precision.  _Here_ she urges the Halo, and it answers her, sending the thinnest of golden tendrils from the middle of her back, across her shoulders and down her arms, seeking that connection as if finding it will close some kind of circuit. She feels the power flow through her palms and into her fingers, settling where skin touches skin.

“I'm there,” Ava says, her words barely more than a breath, afraid that speaking too loudly will break the delicate balance. 

“Hold it,” Beatrice answers in a similar hushed whisper. Slowly, she raises their joined hands, turning her wrists until they're palm to palm in the space between them. “Now, phase your hands through mine with only the power you've already gathered.” 

It's different. This isn't punching through a wall with brute strength, or the rushed deconstruction of a projectile. Those were instinctual uses of the Halo's power, raw and uncoordinated, and she understands now why she couldn't build on that foundation. This is something else. She inhales and Beatrice's hands are solid against hers, exhales and lets the thin limn of the Halo break down that barrier, until they're occupying the same space. There's no accompanying flare from the Halo, no burst of power to light up the room or lure in a stalking Tarask. This is what Lilith was talking about; a targeted use of the Halo's power, fully contained within it's bearer. She inhales again, untangling their hands and lowering hers back to her lap before opening her eyes with a wide grin. 

“Holy fuck, that was amazing!” 

“Language,” Beatrice chides her, but she's grinning too. They're both a little breathless and there's a nearly tangible current running between them, as if they're still connected somehow. Ava breaks it with a quick sideways roll off the bed, bouncing a little on her toes in the thrill of success after so many failures. 

“You're the best,” she says, finger guns pointing squarely at Beatrice, “but now I have to go collapse, because Mary is a sadist and I think she's volunteered us to dig ditches in the morning.” 

Beatrice shakes her head. “Go to bed, then. I'll see you tomorrow.” 

She stares at the door long after Ava has left, hands clasped together in her lap and a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She should be happy. She  _is_ happy. Ava is doing brilliantly. Even before tonight, Mary has had nothing but praise for her dogged determination to master every task put in front of her, and Lilith might not have had anything good to say about her work with the Halo, but if pressed she'll grudgingly admit that she's picking up the sword much faster than she would have expected, and she's coming close to holding her own against Mary in a fight. Getting the Halo under control has been the only thing she wasn't making steady progress in, and they may have finally found the solution to that. 

She should be thrilled. 

So why does it feel like everything is about to go very, very wrong? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to come find at me on tumblr or Twitter. I'm still getting my twitter account going and it's mostly art so far, but I'm happy to yell at people about Warrior Nun. :)
> 
> https://blackteaandbones.tumblr.com/  
> https://twitter.com/blackteandbones


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